


Trust No One

by kateorangesky11



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Not what he seems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-24 01:15:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6136333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kateorangesky11/pseuds/kateorangesky11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If he can't trust his own family, who can Dipper trust anymore?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust No One

**Author's Note:**

> This was written directly after NWHS, so Stanley Pines=Stanford Pines/The Author (they hadn't explained the name swap yet).
> 
> Also at this time I was under the impression that The Author was the twins' grandfather.

“Kid, trust me, don’t do it.”

The small boy’s arms trembled under the weight of the book in his hands. Angry, held-back tears glistened in his eyes, and his wobbly legs didn’t seem to be able to hold him up anymore. He fell back, resting his weight against a nearby tree. The sky was dark, and mist and electricity from the oncoming storm swirled through the air between them. Stanley looked at this random kid—no, not random kid. His grandson, a grandson he never knew he had, a grandson he hadn’t seen been born, from a woman he’d never seen his son fall in love with and marry. What was his name again? Dip—

“Dipper, don’t do this,” Stanley said, his hands held out warily in front of him. His brother’s lent clothes scratched against his skin. The shoes were a perfect fit, but the pants were a little loose. His arms felt all too exposed in the undershirt, and suddenly he missed his old, smelly coat with too many pockets. He stared again at the book in the boy’s all-too-small hands, at the painted gold hand, his mark. He cursed himself for ever writing them. He cursed himself for ever providing this kid—not kid, his grandson, this grandson who was all too much like him—with all of this knowledge, all of this pain, all of this paranoia. How old had Ford said he was again? Twelve? Stanley felt as though someone had punched him in the sternum.

Yep. All too much like him.

“I have to. You shouldn’t be here,” the boy choked out. The tears in his eyes were dangerously close to falling now, but instead of despair, pain and rage shone out of his eyes. The look sent a chill up Stanley’s spine.

“Look, kid, I know how you feel—“

“How could you? How could you possibly know? You haven’t even been here! I don’t even know you!” There was the punch in the sternum again. Stanley felt as though all the wind had been knocked out of him. The years and the time he would never get back weighed on Stanley like some great mountain. He was Atlas, being systematically crushed by the memories he never had the opportunity to make. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled, warning the world that something was coming. Dipper looked up at the noise, but Stanley didn’t take his eyes from the boy. Brown, sweat-matted hair fell away from his face, revealing a red birthmark on his forehead. _“Yeah, the kid keeps it covered all the time with that hat,”_ Ford had said. Stanley glanced down at his hands, at the extra finger there, the anomaly that had shaped who he had become. _So he has something that marks him as different, too_ , Stanley thought.

“And stop calling me ‘kid,’ I’m not a kid,” Dipper mumbled, seemingly as an afterthought. Stanley had the impulse to smile, but didn’t let himself. He doubted his face could even make that shape anymore. _There he is_ , Stanley thought. _I may not know him well, but that’s him. I know it_.

“I’m sorry. Dipper,” Stanley said. He was rewarded with a glance. A light mist started to fall from the sky. “Dipper, I know we don’t know each other that well, but if there is one person you can trust in this God-forsaken town—“

“It’s you?” the boy cried. Thunder boomed again in the distance, louder. “You said it yourself: trust no one! What ever happened to that?” His small arms wrapped around the book, clutching it to his chest like a life raft. “You were right all along. We’re scientists. We’re researchers. We look for the truth, even when no one else believes us, even when the world turns against us, we keep to the truth. I know what happens in this town. I am the bearer of its secrets. I am the only one who can stop Bill, the only one who can stop this whole town from becoming dust! Mabel and Stan, they don’t understand. They live their lives, unaware of what’s coming, and they don’t care. They are okay with being normal. Even _you’re_ okay with being normal.” Dipper pushed himself off of the tree, standing straight again. His legs wobbled a little, but then became steady. “But I’m not. I have a higher calling.”

Stanley stared down his grandson. Different eyes looked back at him. Not Pines eyes. They must have their mother’s eyes, Stanley thought. But that determination, that spirit, that was all Pines. He had it. His sister had it, too, though he may not think so.

“You don’t understand, kid—“

“Dipper!”

“Dipper. Dipper.” Stanley sighed. “Dipper. You don’t understand. I’m not asking—“

“Me to trust you? Good, because I’m not.”

Stanley growled, his hands clenching at his sides. “No. I’m not asking that. Don’t trust me.”

Dipper opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to rethink it. He blinked a few times, and, to Stanley’s relief, the little arms around the journal seemed to loosen a bit. “Wait, say again?”

“Don’t. Trust. Me. I’m saying, don’t. Why would you? You don’t know me.” Stan’s voice cracked on the last word. The truth of his statement burned in his gut, but he dismissed it. There were more pressing matters. “But there is one person you can trust in this damned—sorry, cursed—town, one person you will always be able to trust, and that’s your sister.”

Dipper’s mouth hung open, and for a moment Stanley was afraid he had stopped breathing. Then the boy seemed to collapse in on himself. He dropped the book, which landed with a splat in the mud at his feet. His hands found his hair, pulling at it like he wished for it to be separated from his skull, and when he breathed again, it was ragged and came in gasps. Stanley felt adrenaline rush through his system. Was this Bill? Did he come and take the boy? Was he controlling his mind? He began to run through a mental list of any way he knew to counter possession—

When the boy looked up again, his face was screwed up in pain, tears flowing freely from his eyes. His hair stood up on end, and his hands clutched his temples. Stanley was about to start a chant that he remembered could at least slow down Bill’s interference, when he noticed Dipper’s eyes. They were his. There was no yellowing, no elongated pupils. No, this was his grandson gazing back at him, his grandson looking out from such pain. He took in a huge, ragged breath.

“ **I can’t!** ” he cried. The words seemed to tear out of his soul like a wild thing, echoing around the clearing. The boy collapsed to the ground. Stanley rushed forward to help him, but fear of rejection held him back. “I can’t, I can’t…” Dipper was mumbling. His little body was shaking from his sobs, and the sound tore at Stanley’s heart. “How can I trust her? She picked Stan over me. She picked _Stan_ over _me_. She’s the one person who I trusted, in this whole town, in this whole world, but I’ve never been good enough for her. She trusted Stan over me.” Thunder shook the earth again, and rain began to fall in earnest. Dipper’s small hands kneaded the wet ground. “She’s never needed me like I need her. She’s always had her friends back home. And here, she’s got Candy, and Grenda, and Stan. And who’ve I got? No one. I’m alone.”

There was a long silence, broken only by Dipper’s sobs. Rain soaked Stanley’s borrowed clothes, ran through his still dirty hair. It misted his glasses, collecting in the crack in the right lens. It weighed him down, like everything seemed to since he got back from that God-forsaken dimension. Everything he’d missed. Every moment he’d lost.

Ford’s shoes squelched in the wet earth as Stanley went and sat beside Dipper. He made sure to keep his distance, but the boy didn’t run away. He didn’t even acknowledge him. Stanley went to put a hand on his grandson’s back, but froze a couple of inches away. This hand, he thought. This hand, that caused all of this. This hand, that so many years ago wrote those journals. This hand that so, so many years ago, wrote what was now this boy’s mantra: _trust no one._

“Not many people know this, but Ford was always the more social of the two of us,” Stanley said. “Or, sorry, who you kids know now as Stan. You see, back in the day, we called ourselves Ford and Lee, seeing as our parents figured it’d be good fun to give two twins almost the same name.” He glanced over, but the boy hadn’t moved, and he could still see the sobs that wracked his shoulders. Stanley ran a hand through his hair and made an exasperated noise. He never was good at this. But this story was the only thing he could think of saying, so he kept going. “So, Ford, we were always close, especially when we were younger, but he was always better with people than I was. Where I’d stutter on about ghosts and centaurs and magic, he’d entertain people with talk about the latest movie or sports or something. He got all the dates. He got all the friends.”

Dipper’s hands clenched, squeezing the mud through his fingers. “Why are you telling me this?” he croaked.

“So I wanted to get away,” Stanley rambled on. “I wanted to go someplace where I would be appreciated. So I drove north one day, just kept driving north, and eventually I came across a sleepy place called Gravity Falls, Oregon. And it was then, oh, it was then that I knew I’d found where I belonged. I was there for years before Ford followed me up. By then, I’d already established myself as a paranormal researcher. I’d written the journals. I—“ Stanley halted. Maybe now wasn’t the time to burden the boy with all of the horrific details. “Anyway. To make a long story short, Ford didn’t understand. He had no idea the important work I was doing, what I was creating–He fought me at every turn. I thought he didn’t understand me.” Stanley let his head fall back. Raindrops collected on his glasses, but he didn’t really see them. The memories flashed before his eyes like a silent movie. “I fought him. I thought I didn’t need him. And I was lost. In more ways than one.”

Dipper rose up, sitting on his knees. His face was red and blotchy, but the story seemed to distract him enough to make him stop crying. “Why are you telling me this?” Dipper asked again.

Stanley risked touching him. He put his hand on Dipper’s back. The boy’s shoulders were so small, so fragile. He stiffened, but didn’t draw away. Stanley felt something like relief flow through him, and then something like hope. Maybe there was no way to get that time back, but maybe there was still time to make new memories.

“Because, Dipper. When you’re stuck in another dimension for thirty years, and everyone you knew and loved has all but forgotten about you, Mabel will be the one who will risk everything to bring you back.”


End file.
